Louis Schrikkel combined a long career as an artist with a job as a professional serviceman, giving him, as he said, the freedom to choose his own path. He trained at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam and immediately thereafter travelled to Belgium and France to gain experience. While there, he laid the basis for his later signature style, characterised by colourful compositions of people in their daily activities and surroundings, depicted in highly simplified motifs. Often, his pictures are humorous synopses of reality. Schrikkel is considered a New Realist painter.